You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce
A mystery about a writer who narrates her imagined or not relationship with the faeries amidst an insidiously abusive upbringing. Loved it because this is some of the best and creepiest depictions of faeries I've read in a while.
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Four young Indigenous men pay for an elk hunt gone horribly wrong as the spirit of a young mother elk twists up into a diabolical and malevolent entity that stalks the men and destroys them by using their own weaknesses against them. Terrifying and heartrending.
Bunny by Mona Awad
A dark academia of sorts. A young woman is menaced by a click of cuddlecore girls at a small and fancy college. The first half of the story is a WTF nightmare. The second half is poignant and beautiful.
These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong
A Romeo and Juliet theme set in 1920s Shanghai? Genius. Starring a ruthless Juliet and a gangster Romeo, the story also features a gruesome monster straight out of Lovecraft.
White is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
A haunted house book about legacy. A young woman and her twin brother live in a house infected by their ancestors, a house that becomes particularly unfriendly to anyone who isn't white. There is a bone-chilling mannequin scene and apparitions that made my skin crawl.
Black Light by Elizabeth Hand
I recently re-read this dark fantasy about a girl who ends up confronting a dark version of the Greek god Dionysius in the persona of one of her actress mom's infamous friends. Like her story The Erl King, this one is eerie and lushly entertaining.
The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle
Set in contemporary Ireland, this is a tale about a family who are prone to strange accidents at a certain time of the year as the teenage protagonist tries to figure out the mystery of a strange, forgotten girl who keeps showing up in photographs.
The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White
This author excels at anti-heroines and Elizabeth is no exception. She is an orphan who is selfish and desperate, forges a grotesque alliance with the ruthless (and psychotic) son of the Frankenstein family.
White Fox by Sara Faring
Set on a contemporary but fictional island, this story is about twin sisters, daughters of privilege, who seek to discover what happened to their missing mother, an actress with a mysterious and possibly supernatural origin.
GodChild by Kaori Yuki
This is a manga, set in Victorian England, about a cold-hearted young man who solves occult mysteries and his mysterious butler/bodyguard. The hero's nemesis is his older brother and this manga is seriously Gothic.
